Mike Macdonald says Sean Payton once came close to turning a training-camp film scrape into a full-blown Spygate-style confrontation.
In an interview with Graham Bensinger, Macdonald said the issue popped up in his first year coaching the Seahawks, when Seattle played Denver in its first game. The Seahawks had pulled around 100 plays from the Broncos’ training camp clips that fans had posted publicly on Twitter, and Payton apparently did not take it well.
"He's not my biggest fan," Macdonald said of Payton. "So we play them (Broncos) in our first game.
So fans will tape, or post plays from training camp on Twitter, so it's public knowledge. So we took like 100 plays from their training camp; we were scouting them...
He got wind of it, and he lost it,"
Macdonald said Payton then escalated things by calling Seahawks general manager John Schneider.
"So he called John (Schneider) and threatened to come out publicly and do a whole Patriot, like Spygate type of thing..."
Macdonald said Seattle pushed back hard.
"So we had to counter with him, to say like, 'Hey, look, if you come out at us, we're going to sue you, because it's not true.' So he backed down, but he was killing John, our GM..." Macdonald said.
The story is a strange one, but the key detail is that the footage Seattle used was already out there, posted and shared online for anyone to see. Macdonald made clear there was no actual cheating involved, just a team making use of material that was publicly available.
That doesn’t make the account any less wild, though. Macdonald said Payton was close to accusing the Seahawks of a Spygate-like scandal, and the tension came during Macdonald’s first season in Seattle.
The Seahawks were not alone in leaning on fan-shot practice clips, either. Macdonald noted that plenty of teams use that kind of footage to get a read on opponents, and he added that the Broncos are hardly the first team to have their training camp video studied before the season.
The whole thing could come back into focus soon, too. The Broncos are set to host the Seahawks in Week 6 on Thursday Night Football, a matchup that should put Macdonald and Payton back in the same conversation.
This time, though, Seattle won’t need fan footage to prepare. Macdonald said there will be plenty of film on Bo Nix and the Broncos from the first five weeks of the season.
In Other News...
Mariners Just Gave Fans Plenty To Argue About After This Loss
The Mariners came out of Monday night with a 6-4 loss to the Angels that felt as frustrating as it was familiar, the kind of game where the box score only hints at how many chances slipped away. Seattle never found much rhythm offensively and made life harder on itself in the field, with a dropped third strike among the defensive miscues and a couple of double plays wiping out scoring opportunities before they could really build.
Bryan Woo took his turn on the mound, but the bigger conversation afterward centered on how long he was left in and on the pitch selection that helped lead to a game-tying RBI. For a club trying to stay sharp in the margins, this was one of those nights when both the lineup and the defense left plenty to second-guess, and there will be no shortage of opinions on what should have happened differently. [Read more 🡒]
Julio Rodrguezs Apology Just Put The Mariners On The Spot
Seattles season ended with the kind of inventory no club wants to make in October: no playoff berth, 85 losses, and a star who flashed enough to remind everyone what he can do while still falling short of his usual standard. Julio Rodrguez provided one of the more notable swings of the year, but across the board both his offense and defense dipped from the levels that have made him the face of the franchise, and his uneven year fit into a larger Mariners story that never quite found the traction it needed.
What made the final days of the season sting even more was the tone around the clubhouse, where players and staff openly framed the year as a failure and pushed for accountability from top to bottom. Once the conversation turns to coaching, roster construction and overall performance in the same breath, it puts the organization on a short path to answers, and Rodrguezs public apology only sharpened that pressure by making it clear the standard in Seattle is still much higher than what this group delivered. [Read more 🡒]
Mariners Face A Cal Raleigh Question They Cant Ignore
Cal Raleigh has become one of the Mariners most important players, but the conversation around him has shifted from his power and production to the wear and tear that comes with catching almost every day. The workload has been heavy for several seasons, and the discussion now is whether Seattle has pushed him too hard for too long, especially after a 2026 campaign that raised more questions than answers about his overall performance.
Former catcher A.J. Pierzynski weighed in on just how demanding the position can be, pointing to both the physical grind and the mental strain that come with handling so many games behind the plate. The Mariners cant pin Raleighs 2026 struggles on one cause alone, but they do have a decision to make for 2027, and its one that could affect not only his health but also how much offense they get from one of their most central pieces. [Read more 🡒]